Hi all. Well I've found my way here via Amazon. I think as weird as its going to feel, I am just going to be completely honest and go from there. I mean, that's the beauty of anonymity isn't it?

Ok, so I'm 38 years old. I have a wonderful husband and we have the cutest puppy in the world. No kids, can't have them, and don't want them. We are in the middle of setting up our lives to follow our long term dream. Which is to get an online business up and running which will allow us to travel around the world in a caravan. We've got the first steps over and done with in that we've got some of the business set up, we have moved into a caravan and are just waiting for some dry weather to fix a leaky roof, put some new tires on and then we can start heading off on little adventures. So for most parts my life is amazingly awesome and I feel really grateful I get to follow my deepest dreams.

I also am an alcoholic/problem drinker whatever you want to call it. I come from a Polish background so alcohol has always been a part of my life. But somewhere along the line it became something else. I also have a compulsive eating disorder. Oh and an anxiety disorder/PTSD. I used to drink every day, around 500mls of vodka. This was about 11 - 12 years ago and lasted until 4 years ago, so from ages 26 to 34. I also started smoking pot daily around the same time. I then moved from Sydney to the UK four years ago and things changed. I stopped pot completely and slowed down on the drinking. Over the past four years its been sometimes daily, sometimes not. At the moment I'm drinking about three days straight once a month. But when I do drink, I will have a bottle each day, sometimes a bit more.

The problem isn't frequency, as I just went a month without drinking, and before that weekend about a month as well. But the problem is once I start, its sooooooo friggen hard to stop. For three days after a bender, I have bad, bad, bad cravings. My anxiety is horrendous. I usually get past that stage by eating a lot of junk. Something about that seems to really take the edge off. Then my body sort of slips back into being normal. I have also started smoking pot lately, three times so far this year. I'm not so worried about the pot because its not really my drug of choice and when I gave it up it was hardly a blip in my life.

I have tried quitting alcohol during these past four years and while I have cut down, its still a problem. I have tried AA and SMART, and women for sobriety. AA def is not for me. SMART and WFS are better, but when I drink I tend to avoid places like that, and try not to think about them. I will go to online meetings daily and then just stop. So a lot of this is stop and start for me.

So now I am here. I have made inquiries to DASH and will find out if I can get an appointment in 2 weeks and if I can, I will have an appointment in 4 - 6 weeks. They prescribe nal and also have counseling services and seem like a great resource. I know I have to deal with my anxiety, that's a major problem. Especially now, I'm going for my big dream and facing a lot of anxiety over failing and having that dream taken away. So my questions are:

1. I don't know if I should aim for moderation or abstinence. Part of me thinks abstinence will be easier, but another part that enjoys the taste of alcohol (I'm not talking about the relentless drive to get blackout drunk), like enjoying wine with dinner or a cocktail here and there would like to still enjoy these things. Not much of a question, but would love to hear some experiences people have had with both.

2. Should I get the book? Will it give me better info than this site or is the information here?

3. Does anyone recommend combining nal with group support or something similar or is nal enough. I guess the heart of that question is, is alcohol addiction simply a behaviour/reward things in which case nal would be enough or is it also a problem of thinking thing which I would need to learn new ways of thinking and the support of others going through the same thing?

4. Anyone have any good resources on dealing with anxiety?

Thanks so much for reading and any help given in advance.

Hi, and welcome. Your life sounds fun. Here's my initial take on the four questions...
(1) It doesn't really matter what you "aim" for, because you never know where the journey will lead you (you should be able to relate to that idea!). Some people end up moderate, some people end up abstinent. Your addiction has you in what some call a "dopamine fog," meaning the endless cycles of getting high cloud your perception, judgment, and reasoning skills (at least to some extent). TSM will hopefully let you step back and look at this decision in a new light, possibly within just a few weeks from now.
(2) TSM is so simple that, IMO, a book is not absolutely necessary. You can pretty much learn all you need to know here or on Melissa1928's blog. It's super-simple.
(3) There was actually a study that found that TSM + Therapy had the same outcomes as TSM without therapy. It definitely can't hurt, but most would argue it's not necessary.
(4) The best thing you can do for anxiety...is free yourself from addiction. Alcoholism = anxiety, though sometimes it seems as though alcohol HELPS with anxiety. If you have true anxiety (and many people do), I'd hold off on the drug route and just try more natural methods (e.g. meditation).

As Barry said, I'm not sure you need to decide what you're aiming for. Some among us aimed for moderation, then decided that abstinence was simpler once the addiction was broken and we could decide freely. Others wanted to "get sober" in the usual sense of abstinence, then realized that they enjoyed drinking small amounts of alcohol. We don't know what our own cures will look like until we get there.

I don't think the book is necessary. Some people think it's great, a virtual Bible, but the basic is so simple that it can be explained in a paragraph. Personally, I think the book is a bit sensationalized and is useful more as PR than as a how-to manual.

The book is unlikely to do you any harm, though. It's only a few bucks, right? Problem drinkers usually spend a lot more than that on alcohol. It also has a chapter on how to pitch this approach to a doctor, which could be useful with the DASH people (I infer that DASH is some kind of medical service).

Welcome to the forum. I'm looking forward to seeing your progress.